It was brought to my attention that I haven’t really talked much about who the displaced are and why they are displaced since I started the blog. This post will address those issues as well as other questions I have received by e-mail. I will not get too in depth about all the issues, just give a general overlook in order not to make this too tedious.
1. Who are the displaced?
In the Guidind Principles on Internal Displacement, UNHCR defines internally displaced persons as “persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of Human Rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border” The Colombian definition stated in Law 387 is similar; “every person who has been forced to migrate within the national territory leaving their locality of residence or habitual economic activities, because his/her life, physical integrity, security or personal liberty have been violated or are under direct threat with occasion of any of the following situations: Internal armed conflict, interior disturbances and tensions, generalized violence, massive violations of human rights, international humanitarian law infractions or other circumstances that emanated from the above-mentioned situations that can alter or dramatically alter de public order.”
In the Colombian case, many scholars agree that most of the displaced are rural farmers who have had to flee their land due to direct threats to their life. Rural farmers have different problems, one comes from armed insurgent groups who take over their land, who draft their children, or who kill or threat to kill family members, the other are neoliberal developmental schemes such as megaprojects (does Narmada Dam ring a bell?). In the case of the armed insurgent groups, many civilians are caught in the fight because they are perceived to belong to the “enemy.” This is a serious problem because the Colombian case gets even more complicated when we look at the actors. There are paramilitary groups, there are guerrilla groups, and other smaller actors, and they all fight amongst themselves for the control of land. So, a farmer can be accused by the paramilitaries of being with the guerrilla, and unfortunately, if someone is believed to be an “enemy” the punishment is death. If the person is lucky, he/she will be warned and can leave before it’s too late. In other instances, the groups take over the person’s home, and they have no other choice than to leave.
What makes this problem even more complicated is the drug trade, which is how most of these insurgent groups fund their fight. It is no longer an ideological fight, it is a fight for power and cash, lots and lots of cash. In Colombia, we have seen how a group that started to rebel against the central government on the basis of political ideologies has moved to being a terrorist organization linked to the international drug trade. At first, the rebellion was rooted in the time known as La Violencia (The Violence), which occurred between 1948 and 1958. During those years about two hundred thousand people lost their lives. The bloodshed stopped when Liberals and Conservatives agreed to share power in 1957.
Unfortunately, this bilateral agreement left out other parties (especially from the left), which felt compelled to fight for inclusion. The intractability of this conflict has been greatly aggravated by the transformation of the guerrilla (one of the most notorious and infamous actors) into a terrorist organization that focuses its energy in bringing unrest to the territory, killing citizens, hiding in national as well as international territory, profiting from extortion, kidnapping and most importantly from the drug trade.
Going back to the affected population, scholars agree that the rural population is targeted as a deliberate strategy of war, internal displacement is not collateral damage or an unintended consequence. On a more demographic note, most displaced persons are women head of household and children. Women have to displace by themselves because their husbands have lost their lives. There are also many indigenous people who have been displaced from their ancestral land.
One of the most difficult issues for the displaced is that they lived comfortably before displacement, many owned their own piece of land, and had their own home, always had food on their plate, etc. When they displace they cannot bring their means of production with them, as soon as they lose their land they lose their livelihood. Some estimates report that 95% of displaced persons (in the world) live under the poverty line. This is the most common complaint I hear from the people I’ve been working with, they had a good and “dignified” life before, now they live in dangerous areas, in ranches made out of wood, cardboard, in the worst cases, they don’t even have that. They have to sleep on the sidewalks.
2. What does Law 387 stipulate?
In my last post, and in most of my posts, I have mentioned this law, but have not gone really in depth about it. Experts in the subject agree that Colombian legislation on internal displacement is the most advanced in the world. Law 387 is the centerpiece of Colombian IDP legislation it was enacted in 1997 and was the result of a collective effort by scholars, government entities, the Red Cross, and UNHCR, among others to outline the rights of the displaced population, the responsibilities of the government, and to design a plan of action to tackle the problem of internal displacement. Law 387 established the politics of prevention, emergency humanitarian attention, and voluntary return or resettlement of the displaced population. One of the products of this law was the creation of the Sistema Nacional de Atención Integral a la Población Desplazada or National System of Integral Attention to the Displaced Population (SNAIPD). SNAIPD is a meeting point for all public, private and communitarian entities to formulate policies and adopt prevention measures of forced displacement. The goal is to generate action and to have an impact on the displaced population at national, regional and local levels. Law 387 allowed for the creation of many important entities whose mandate is to assist the displaced population.
I apologize in advance, I wrote this very quickly, this is by no means an in-depth analysis, or explanation of what happens here in Colombia with internal displacement or it’s causes, etc. But although I don’t have much time, I wanted to address the questions (and suggestions) I received.
1. Who are the displaced?
In the Guidind Principles on Internal Displacement, UNHCR defines internally displaced persons as “persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of Human Rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border” The Colombian definition stated in Law 387 is similar; “every person who has been forced to migrate within the national territory leaving their locality of residence or habitual economic activities, because his/her life, physical integrity, security or personal liberty have been violated or are under direct threat with occasion of any of the following situations: Internal armed conflict, interior disturbances and tensions, generalized violence, massive violations of human rights, international humanitarian law infractions or other circumstances that emanated from the above-mentioned situations that can alter or dramatically alter de public order.”
In the Colombian case, many scholars agree that most of the displaced are rural farmers who have had to flee their land due to direct threats to their life. Rural farmers have different problems, one comes from armed insurgent groups who take over their land, who draft their children, or who kill or threat to kill family members, the other are neoliberal developmental schemes such as megaprojects (does Narmada Dam ring a bell?). In the case of the armed insurgent groups, many civilians are caught in the fight because they are perceived to belong to the “enemy.” This is a serious problem because the Colombian case gets even more complicated when we look at the actors. There are paramilitary groups, there are guerrilla groups, and other smaller actors, and they all fight amongst themselves for the control of land. So, a farmer can be accused by the paramilitaries of being with the guerrilla, and unfortunately, if someone is believed to be an “enemy” the punishment is death. If the person is lucky, he/she will be warned and can leave before it’s too late. In other instances, the groups take over the person’s home, and they have no other choice than to leave.
What makes this problem even more complicated is the drug trade, which is how most of these insurgent groups fund their fight. It is no longer an ideological fight, it is a fight for power and cash, lots and lots of cash. In Colombia, we have seen how a group that started to rebel against the central government on the basis of political ideologies has moved to being a terrorist organization linked to the international drug trade. At first, the rebellion was rooted in the time known as La Violencia (The Violence), which occurred between 1948 and 1958. During those years about two hundred thousand people lost their lives. The bloodshed stopped when Liberals and Conservatives agreed to share power in 1957.
Unfortunately, this bilateral agreement left out other parties (especially from the left), which felt compelled to fight for inclusion. The intractability of this conflict has been greatly aggravated by the transformation of the guerrilla (one of the most notorious and infamous actors) into a terrorist organization that focuses its energy in bringing unrest to the territory, killing citizens, hiding in national as well as international territory, profiting from extortion, kidnapping and most importantly from the drug trade.
Going back to the affected population, scholars agree that the rural population is targeted as a deliberate strategy of war, internal displacement is not collateral damage or an unintended consequence. On a more demographic note, most displaced persons are women head of household and children. Women have to displace by themselves because their husbands have lost their lives. There are also many indigenous people who have been displaced from their ancestral land.
One of the most difficult issues for the displaced is that they lived comfortably before displacement, many owned their own piece of land, and had their own home, always had food on their plate, etc. When they displace they cannot bring their means of production with them, as soon as they lose their land they lose their livelihood. Some estimates report that 95% of displaced persons (in the world) live under the poverty line. This is the most common complaint I hear from the people I’ve been working with, they had a good and “dignified” life before, now they live in dangerous areas, in ranches made out of wood, cardboard, in the worst cases, they don’t even have that. They have to sleep on the sidewalks.
2. What does Law 387 stipulate?
In my last post, and in most of my posts, I have mentioned this law, but have not gone really in depth about it. Experts in the subject agree that Colombian legislation on internal displacement is the most advanced in the world. Law 387 is the centerpiece of Colombian IDP legislation it was enacted in 1997 and was the result of a collective effort by scholars, government entities, the Red Cross, and UNHCR, among others to outline the rights of the displaced population, the responsibilities of the government, and to design a plan of action to tackle the problem of internal displacement. Law 387 established the politics of prevention, emergency humanitarian attention, and voluntary return or resettlement of the displaced population. One of the products of this law was the creation of the Sistema Nacional de Atención Integral a la Población Desplazada or National System of Integral Attention to the Displaced Population (SNAIPD). SNAIPD is a meeting point for all public, private and communitarian entities to formulate policies and adopt prevention measures of forced displacement. The goal is to generate action and to have an impact on the displaced population at national, regional and local levels. Law 387 allowed for the creation of many important entities whose mandate is to assist the displaced population.
I apologize in advance, I wrote this very quickly, this is by no means an in-depth analysis, or explanation of what happens here in Colombia with internal displacement or it’s causes, etc. But although I don’t have much time, I wanted to address the questions (and suggestions) I received.
No comments:
Post a Comment